Data Center Deals Drain Resources While Creating Few Jobs

The Challenge: South Carolina has approved several large data center projects with significant tax incentives, raising questions about job creation, resource consumption, community input, and public transparency. What do South Carolinians think? Residents feel misled. One wrote that data centers "mislead the uneducated into assuming they must employ hundreds of people while in reality, only a few dozen employees are ever hired." Another described these projects as "proposed clandestinely to local governments who are often required to keep the project secret." A Marion County resident was alarmed that "the agreement was made hurriedly, with little fanfare, leaving residents little time to voice concerns." Others pointed out that "a single AI data center uses the electricity equivalent of more than 500,000 houses." The consistent message: "citizens do not want these in our communities."